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AACC scientists identify new cardiac biomarker

Plus, get ready for high sensitivity cardiac Troponin assays in practice.

Laboratory medicine experts discovered a new lipid biomarker panel to detect heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) even before symptoms present, with “much greater certainty than standard tests for this condition,” according to a January 5 press release from the American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC).

The January issue of the AACC’s journal, Clinical Chemistry focuses on cardiovascular disease and features research reflecting a “growing understanding of the molecular signatures of heart disease,” according to the press release, and a trend towards developing “more precise tests for the early diagnosis, monitoring, and targeted treatment.”

The study in question identified three new cardiac lipid biomarkers, a cardiac lipid panel (CLP), which “significantly improved diagnostic performance” when combined with the current standard biomarker approach for diagnosing heart failure, NT-proBNP.

From a long-term point of view, advances in laboratory medicine could spell both a significant increase in the quality of care as well as a significant reduction in costs—through reduced readmission rates, reduced length-of-stay, and more.

Though, that era might begin soon—and providers should be prepared. Since companies are already supplying high sensitivity assays with significant volume in Europe, these vendors are “unlikely” to continue supplying conventional assays at reduced volumes following FDA approval of the new tests, says Dr Jaffe.

“The high sensitivity assays will replace all of the non-high-sensitivity assays… I think the uptake will be fairly rapid, and we will need to adjust,” says Dr Jaffe. Thankfully, costs should stay the same. “They are both relatively inexpensive,” he says.

But a clinical understanding of the assays will be important considering widespread implications, and soon. Experts expected FDA approval of at least one high sensitivity assay before the end of 2016, though the waiting continues.